


Wither to a Stalk

by Shenanigans



Series: The Juniper Suite [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Implied previous dick/roy, Jason Todd is Hemlock, M/M, Mentions of sex work, Roy is a good dad, and i love him, aw hell, creepy fairy tales, does dreaming about the disembodied ghost of a Robin inhabiting plantlife count as porn??, good dad Roy Harper is the best Roy harper, i don’t know man, mentions of drug use, murderation, overtly sexual while only implying sex?, tim drake is a sassy son of a biscuit, vine molestation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25863769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans
Summary: "The last time I encountered Hemlock I was following a lead here." Tim pointed at the map of Robinson park, nails buffed and carefully kept. It was a pretty way of saying the last time he almost died."Should you even be going out there?"The boy's hair was a spiky mess as he frowned, flicking the blue-grey gaze up at Roy. The edge of a bruise marred the pale skin over his cheekbone and the fresh bandage had shifted as he moved to peek over the seam of his collar. "It’s my case," Tim answered, like that was the only thing that mattered. Tim’s face shuttered in a very visible way, pulling deep into Robin to where only the impish violent intelligence looked back at Roy. “I’m fine.”"You're not," Roy told him, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms to pull his fingers back, shivering into the sing of blood in his forearms. He'd walked into the park unprepared once and walked out with ghosts. "But, it's nice to see you know how to lie."
Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Series: The Juniper Suite [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814866
Comments: 15
Kudos: 73





	Wither to a Stalk

**Author's Note:**

> Canon is a loose garment that I leave on the floor so long it gets wrinkly. All love and affection to my tireless beta (who I met in person for the first time and was able to clutch and fawn over the way she deserves) Chasing.

“You were right.” 

Dick only looked at him, eyes hidden behind the whiteout lenses in his uniform, and waved Roy in. Roy had knocked until the door opened. He ducked inside when Dick took a tired step back, dropped his duffel and all pretenses. Roy pushed forward with a dogged determination until Dick was backed against the wall and watching him up close. He was caught halfway between Nightwing and Dick Grayson, uniform peeled from his skin, white tape over his ribs. Roy tucked his forehead against the slight salt scent of Dick’s black hair and wet his lips. He let himself forget for a moment that they didn’t do these things, not out loud at least.

“I wish I could be smug about this,” Dick whispered, the thump of a glove landing on the floor heavier than just leather. Dick had started wearing more armor, more weight. Dick had let himself grow heavier. 

Roy had packed his kids into the Bronco, packed them into the safety of Ollie’s care, and packed away his civilian life. He’d caught Ollie in the kitchen and asked gruffly to charter a flight into Gotham, snatching scraps of sleep on the plane until the soft thump rattle had pushed him awake and out into the soft heat of a Gotham evening. 

Summer was squatting along the Eastern coastline like a fat toad, a solid wet weight that prickled sweat along his spine as he moved through the deserted terminal, blinking at the flicker of his reflection in the high windows of the Gotham airport, the sound of his boots scuffing over the polished tiles a back beat to the placid instructions that piped through the vaulted space in a soft warm alto. He nodded at the man manning a floor buffer in a blue coverall. 

Gotham had a way of making him feel like he was intruding. It watched him over its shoulder, eyes narrowed and wary. It was in the way the little kid wearing a neck wrap and a day’s travel had stopped in a short skid after screaming out of the bathroom to watch him with wide dark eyes. It was in the way the woman on the tram that shuffled him from the terminal to the baggage claim didn’t acknowledge him outside of picking up her small purse and setting it in her lap. It was in the way the citizens didn’t make eye contact unless it was violent. 

A small pack of rangy hipped teens in angry eyes and cigarette smoke made soft blistering noises at him while he stood on the curb, just outside the pool of yellow light and inside the lines colored by the shift and heave of busses. He heard the flick of a switchblade and simply turned, letting a bit of his past flicker over his face- like setting a hand on a well kept gun.

Roy didn’t have time for the posturing; he had a mission. 

He had considered calling ahead, but had simply hailed a cab. The trip had passed in half remembered conversation through the bulletproof divider. He could see himself reflected in the curved window with each stroke of orange lamp light. 

“Business or pleasure?” The man had asked, deft dark hands skimming over the wheel as he edged through the trickling traffic.

“Is there a third option?”

“In Gotham? You don’t want the third option,” the man had grinned, reflection watery in the rearview mirror, a flash of white teeth and something sad. “It could kill you.”

Roy didn’t look up, eyes catching on a small cluster of bony children staring up at a boy dangling from the slim branch of a purple jacaranda where it was slipping spindly branches from the small planter. They all looked over as the cab passed. They all watched with deep hungry eyes like the flicker of feral cats waiting for a stranger to leave so they could claw into something delicious. Kids played everywhere, anytime. 

Gotham was a stained mess of neon smeared over smog, the glittering windows flickering out of the dark as they passed over the river, a few sullen boats lowing out over the water as they churned steadily towards the docks that pushed sharp barnacle covered fingers into the brackish water at the South end of the city. He hadn’t been able to see the top of the Wayne Tower, but he hadn’t needed to see where he was going- he was used to fumbling in the dark to find his friends.

The living room was silent as Roy did his due diligence, helping Dick out of his costume, out of the need to be strong, and into bed. He barely made it out of his boots before he’d shucked out of his jeans, peeling away everything that kept him from being here, being someone who could be useful. He could fake it until he could make it.

“Hemlock almost killed Tim,” Dick whispered in the dark, voice muffled by the pillow under his jaw even though Roy could feel the shape of the words as his lips skimmed the point of his shoulders. If they had moved even a little, he could have scooped Dick against him, could have held him in the dark where he was trying not to fall apart. 

Roy wanted to turn, wanted to believe that after all this time they were anything other than Dick and Roy.

"What stopped him?" Roy asked instead of anything personal. He ran his fingers over his own stomach under the soft heavy sheet. Grayson had the creature comforts of a rich man, luxury in hospital corners and the sleek lines of expensive pillows. It was a film over the whole penthouse. Roy lingered in a bed that could be both soft and firm. 

"Tim says Jason woke up," Dick answered, voice flat even as his fingers stretched to skate over the cut of Roy's hip. Dick touched him like it was something they always did, like it was something he could just have without fear. Roy wondered idly who he dreamed of at night.

He never wondered if it was him.

"That's the same thing Gamble said." Roy sucked his teeth and let his eyes follow the shape of the light that picked up a scattered square on the ceiling, the glow of the city behind the darkened glass that covered the entire south facing wall of the Wayne Penthouse. If Wayne Manor was old money, dripping in forbidden hardwood parquet and the lingering smell of cigars and business deals that spanned a century of handshakes and broad glad-handing Waynes, the penthouse was the sliver of platinum-coated aesthetics that belonged in glossy magazines for people to purchase. The penthouse was modern wealth as a realized dream in chrome and marble, windows littered with touchable tech and barren.

Roy missed the way his house smelled warm like pasta boiling on a stove, kids shampoo, and mud. His house smelled earthy and lived in. Dick's life felt like a picture caught in the pages of a book, trapped as prettily as a painting in a frame to smile out at the world as it moldered untouched. 

"You shou-"

"Mention my kids again and I will fucking walk out the door," Roy gritted, pinching the bridge of his nose and refusing to look at where he knew Dick was fighting the urge to argue.

"Okay."

The hand at his hip spread out, fingers touching light at his own before pulling back.

Roy knew the feel of an apology and sighed, rolling to simply pin Dick to the mattress with the weight of a heavy arm. He felt the way Dick stilled. 

"What do you need?"

"Nothi-"

"Liar. You can fool everyone else, Dickiebird," Roy shifted so his leg hooked over Dick's in the dark, feeling the soft tickle of hair against the bottom of his foot where he slipped it against Dick's calf. "Not me. What do you need?" 

Roy knew he would repeat himself until Dick understood. Dick wore masks on his masks, but Roy was patient when finding the center of a thing. He knew that a person only ever had one shot. If he missed, the center was never the same.

"A promise," Dick laughed finally, a broken little sound as he rolled his eyes, shifting into the next mask.

"You know I don't do those," Roy muttered against Dick's temple. He felt the hot track of tear slip against Dick's skin and could taste the regret in the simple salt.

"I've never really needed one from you."

"Careful, Dickiebird," Roy whispered. "That sounds a lot like the truth."

"Don't tell anyone," Dick whispered back around a stunning smile, just as hushed as his eyes closed. "I want him to come home so I can stop feeling so fucking guilty all the time. I want-"

"I'll find him."

Roy whispered the words again into the settled evening, into the safe soft blue of Dick's breathing gone lost and heavy in sleep. He whispered the words like he was braiding them into himself like a charm, like Lian would sometimes weave flowers with her nimble fingers into his hair, plaiting it into a soft red crown while he watched TV on the floor. He loved to let her play while he sat, petting the sides of Gamble's shaved head as the boy explained the relationship of the cartoon characters in a breathless mumble. 

That night he dreamed of Jason watching him sleep as a vine pushed out of his mouth like a hand, stretching over his tongue to pull his face away.

Morning broke bright across the empty bed. The room smelled like grave dirt, and Roy’s mouth tasted like flowers as he muttered and shoved off the covers and rolled to his feet. Dick was already waiting for him even as he pulled the bits of himself back together and pulled on pants with a slight barefoot hop. 

“Hey.”

"He's changing," Dick mumbled when Roy stretched, scuffing sleep out of his eyes as he padded blearily to the coffee maker. He yawned widely, shiver visible across his chest until he shook his head. Roy was surprised he’d managed to drag his ass out of bed. Roy peeled out of the sweat slick sleep shirt like he could skin out of the lingering weight of his own restless sleep.

Roy poured two mugs of coffee, handing one off to Dick before he walked directly past him to the pantry, staring at the neat shelves of glass jars filled with cereals and dry goods. He could almost hear Jason-- _fucking rich people_ \-- in the back of his head, frowning at the bounty. 

He palmed the granola and padded to the island. "You said he tried to kill the new Robin. Again?"

"It wasn’t like the first time. Tim's usually good about avoiding the parks. Ivy has been leaving him alone, mostly. He looks young enough that she has a soft spot for him." 

Roy pointed a spoon at Dick, frowning as he considered a bowl momentarily before just tucking into the dry cereal. "Meaning he's too young."

"He’s been doing this for years, Roy.” Dick sipped the coffee, watching him over the lip of the mug. “We were the same age."

"You really aren't making a good case here. I remember what fucking idiots we were, Dickiebird." He tilted his head, wondering where his hair tie had vanished when he had to shake the messy tangle of red waves back, hooking some behind his ear with an absent tuck. "I distinctly remember scaly panties and handcuff arrows."

"You _liked_ the scales."

" _You_ liked the handcuffs," Roy replied dryly around a half-chewed mouthful.

Dick conceded the point when he turned, digging into a drawer and tossing a hairband at Roy, the pale beige distinctly the wrong color for any of the boys. "He almost bled out, but the park pushed him onto the sidewalk and one of his friends in that weird little group of theirs heard him whispering for help. He would have died if not for the Kid."

"The Krypto-clone?” Roy arched both eyebrows, impressed. “Point to the Bat for picking a kid with friends in high places this time."

"For letting him have friends, you mean." Dick scowled, and it was starting to look too familiar on his face. Roy almost asked if he was okay, but he had learned not to push. Dick might be the one to dare the sky to fly, but he’d set his heels in and out stubborn a mountain if pushed. Roy sighed and tucked into the granola again.

“You’re up early,” came a soft low voice from behind them. Roy didn’t startle only because of years of training. And, possibly, minor jetlag. 

“Hey, Babybird.” Dick didn’t look surprised, just nodded at where the newest Robin was stepping out of the shadows in full uniform.

This Robin fit in the penthouse in a way Dick and Jason never had. Tim Drake was wearing the modified Robin suit; it was armored, the shell something unforgiving. Roy wondered how many pounds of pressure per inch it would take to crack. He thought idly of the one small sapling that had rooted stubbornly into the side of the mountain just outside the Enlightenments trail somewhere north of Star City. He thought about the thin root that had slid deep and sheared the rock face bare. 

Dick hopped to perch on the counter, pulling one heel up onto the lip of sleek white granite and letting his other leg bounce idly from the cabinetry underneath as he packed away a protein bar. Dick looked like a college kid who had wandered up for a party that never happened, a bright print on his shirt that he'd misbuttoned over a pair of compression thermals and silky shorts. He still had a bit of the glue from the mask on his cheek and Roy stopped himself from thumbing it away.

Tim moved through the kitchen like he'd grown up in this sort of wealth, polished and crafted for its sleek design. Dick was sawdust and ropes, the smell of sweat and chalk. Tim was the creeping ozone of computers and the warm wealthy ache of expensive coffee. Roy found himself missing the soft weathered smell of paperbacks and leather under fake red lollipop flavors.

"The last time I encountered Hemlock I was following a lead here." Tim pointed at the map of Robinson park, nails buffed and carefully kept. It was a pretty way of saying the last time he almost died.

"Should you even be going out there?" 

The boy's hair was a spiky mess as he frowned, flicking the blue-grey gaze up at Roy. The edge of a bruise marred the pale skin over his cheekbone and the fresh bandage had shifted as he moved to peek over the seam of his collar. "It’s my case," Tim answered, like that was the only thing that mattered. Tim’s face shuttered in a very visible way, pulling deep into Robin to where only the impish violent intelligence looked back at Roy. “I’m fine.”

"You're not," Roy told him, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms to pull his fingers back, shivering into the sing of blood in his forearms. He'd walked into the park unprepared once and walked out with ghosts. "But, it's nice to see you know how to lie."

“Don’t mind him. He’s just cranky this morning.” Dick poked the boy with a bare toe, leg an easy graceful stretch.

"I made a map. I just need someone that isn’t one of us to head inside and mark the location of the current base of operations.” This Robin, Tim, was sharp and delicate, nose a slim line from wide blue-grey eyes and cutting delicately between high cheekbones as he peeled carefully out of the domino over the sink. The skin was left pink as he blinked, owlish. He'd be handsome. 

Roy ignored the way his mind supplied: _if he lived_.

"Great. That will be super helpful when I’m dying alone." Roy wet his lips and softened the smile, making it a wry grin as he slanted a look at where Dick was frowning at him. "Joking. Mostly."

The kid lifted a hand and rubbed two fingers at the edge of where the white bandage was hidden. He gracefully covered the tick by tucking his fingers to pop the high collar of his cape and Roy knew instinctively that it was reinforced to protect the boy’s throat. This cape was long, black, and fell closed easily at the front to hide the bright colors underneath. Roy reached to hold the cape as Tim disabled the clasp and let it slither off his shoulders. The kid was tiny and Roy was used to moving to help people smaller than him.

"How old are you again?"

The smile wasn't really visible in any way other than a feeling of amusement. Tim didn't look at Roy, just cocked his head as he moved to undo the utility belt, tapping a quick series of buttons to disarm the trap in the buckle. "Would it help if I said I'm older than I look?"

Roy considered it, glancing back at the empty living room and tried not to think about the last Robin that had gotten lost in the dark, lost in the shadows. He tried not to think about the way Jason had never seemed young, even when he should have. "Probably not."

"Good, because I'm not." Tim pulled off the gloves and sighed when the armored tunic cracked open, pulling a plain white compression shirt away from where it was plastered to his skin. The short sleeves made the bruises and healing cuts more obvious. 

“Great! He’s a whole child.” Roy waved a flat hand at Dick like he was demanding an explanation. “I have t-shirts older than him. This is just super.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I’m fifteen. I’m taking a shower. I feel like a bruise.” 

Twenty minutes later, Tim was toweling his hair and hopping onto a stool to explain the intricate markings on the large topographical map of Robinson Park that he’d brought. Muggers who had disappeared into a shift of brush. Rapists ripped from their prey, screaming as they were yanked down the hillside into the brambles. Working girls clustered at the edges. Roy noted that there wasn’t a stark red X marking where Jason had died.

“The park has been seeing a massive increase in disappearances.” Tim was peeling a power bar, snacking as he glared at the green elevation lines that marked the specific topography. Roy appreciated that the kid hadn’t just dropped the towel on the ground, draping it over the back of his chair as he scooted forward to touch the red X on the south entrance near the Diamond District. “I thought maybe it was Black Mask and the human trafficking he’d been dipping his toes in, but it wasn’t showing in any other part of the city.” 

He shrugged, shoving his hair out of his face. It was drying into silky locks that hung into his face. “I went down to talk to the girls to see if they had any insight. I was about halfway into this area-” he moved his hand, tapping long fingers just to the edge of where the reservoir lifted up from the flat plain. “That didn’t go well. But you know that. I know you don’t-”

“He tried to kill you, Tim.”

“I don’t think that’s accurate, but now is not the time.”

A silence settled over the map and Roy moved, walking deliberately between where Dick and Tim were glaring blankly at each other, a quiet cold war of family secrets. He refilled his mug, shaking his head and thinking about the box of basil that sat happy and bright in the window of his kitchen. The penthouse didn’t have any plants- bare and clear of living things other than the birds that roosted in rich beds and sleek modern couches.

“I have a contact I want you to meet,” Tim continued finally, looking over at Roy. “You and she have both spoken to Hemlock. Dick is going to be running a similar line of questioning on the girls working outside Grant Park. The body count is concentrated on Robinson, but I don’t want to discount the idea that maybe the girls working in that area know something.”

“Is it going to be safe for you to-”

“I’ll be fine.” 

“I didn’t ask if you would be fine, Tim. I asked if it was going to be safe for you to be around the park. I don’t feel like trying my luck with a third attempt on your life,” Roy frowned. He knew better than to underestimate the pull the park had- he’d lost one pretty bird to it’s brambles already.

“Just meet me at the Powers/Downing platform after the sun goes down.” He nodded to the map. “People are dying and I’m not going to sit around and let my _feelings_ get in the way of doing something to save them.” He shoved the rest of the power bar into his mouth, cheek bulging as he chewed. “You coming or not, Harper?”

Roy tossed him a quick salute, before turning to glare at where Dick was shaking his head behind his hand at the same time. “He’s fucking twelve.”

“And yet, I trust him.”

Roy took the light rail to meet Tim later, head tilted against the scuffed heavy glass littered at the corners with black writing, tags of people desperate for Gotham to remember them, to notice them, to let them live on. Roy almost started picking at the edge of a sticker curved over the back of the seat in front of him, the vibrant colors clashing with the blue and purple fabric that the cushions were made from. The train rocked, a gentle sway, and he could hear the bright brassy bark of the girl at the front of his car laughing, flipping her hair back and forth over her shoulder as she punctuated the liquid spanish conversation with quick accented exclamations.

"I know, right?"

He glanced at them, sixteen and cutting away the last innocence lingering on them with flashy jeans and the slick bubblegum pink lips that were so fashionable on this coast. He watched the way the other girl snapped long-nailed fingers on the second syllable of each word, wondering if Lian would do this too one day. If she would prune the youth off of herself with a snarl. 

She had been asleep, grumping as she’d rubbed her face against the back of her arm and curled against Gamble when he'd left. He'd spent a breathless five minutes forcing himself to move, to leave even as he pet her skin-warm hair and pressed a wish to her temple.

"Dad?" Gamble had looked so young in the dark. He had been watching from the pool of shadows in the bunk they kept at Ollie's house for sleepovers. He’d looked lost and afraid even as he kept Lian's fingers in his own, other hand soothing and rubbing a lock of her silky black hair over his knuckle.

Roy hadn't ever lied to his kids. He hadn't been willing to start then.

"No matter what happens, I love you." He had held Gamble's eyes. "Nothing could ever stop that and would ever stop that. I will do everything I can to come home. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to pretend you aren't scared. You're my kid and you have the right to feel however you want. Except," he'd paused, holding up a finger. "You are not allowed to feel that it's your fault if something goes wrong."

“It’s not what she said,” Gamble had rushed out, eyes earnest as he’d leaned forward, hand dimpling the duvet in the dark. “Eden. It’s not what she said. It’s not worth the price.”

“Hey, hey now-”

“No, Dad, you need to listen to me.” Gamble had grabbed for him, gripping a fistful of the soft flannel he’d managed to catch. “She’ll kill you. She doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t care about anything but the Green. It’s coming and it’s horrible. She is building Eden and we thought we would get to stay. I remember the way it felt- like, like it was everything. It felt like everything was how it was supposed to be. It felt perfect. I still dream about it. I miss it. Don’t go in. Dad, please. Don’t go. It’s not worth it. Please, just stay here. Stay with u-”

“Hey, hey, kiddo, love,” Roy had managed, startled at the fierce terror in Gamble’s voice. “This won’t stop if we don’t stop it. I have to help.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t have to. They can get someone else. They can ask someone else.” Gamble’s knuckles had been white, his voice soft and terrified. “Dad. Don’t do this.”

Roy had swallowed, throat clicking as his lungs turned to burrow around his heart. 

“Dad, please.”

The small guest room was painted a quiet pale white with black and white photos of the family framed on the wall above the heavy walnut dresser. There were four lights, a desk light on the small letter desk tucked into the corner, a lamp on the ceiling, a brass bedside light, and the warm night light behind pretty stained glass plugged in to the right of the closet door. The shadows it pushed into the room were different colors: blue and purple and green cut with thick black lines that wavered. The bunk bed was a solid walnut frame with two twin beds in matching gray coverlets and thick plush pillows. The ladder was built into the frame, the top bunk empty. 

The floor was hardwood covered in a richly colored plush oriental rug, the thick nap plush as Roy had bent and settled onto the floor to pull Gamble into his arms like he was a little kid again. He had palmed the back of his head, feeling the way he was shaking.

“You can’t ask him that,” had broken the silence and he’d looked over at where Lian was watching them, awake and dark eyed. She had looked so small and serious, solemn and sure. 

“Li-”

“Dad is a _hero_. He saves people. He saved you. He can’t not. It’s _who he is_.” She’d rolled onto her side and scooted to the edge of the bed, reaching to curl and tuck her forehead against Roy’s shoulder, fingers finding Gamble’s by rote. She’d sniffed and looked up at him, eyes serious until she’d managed a small crooked smile. Roy had recognised it as one of his on her face. “Be careful.”

He had held her head in the palm of his hand, had watched her mouth move. He’d watched her nose scrunch up and settle. He’d wondered at the hint of where her eyebrows would be, the soft silk of her hair where it smoothed over the careful curve of her head. He’d held her, counting her breaths and touched a thumb to the palm of a tiny hand, entranced and in love at the way her fingers had curled around and clutched him. He’d found his heart; it just lived outside his body.

Roy had trembled, terrified and alone in a rented hotel room as he’d watched his life change between one heartbeat and the next.

“I’m going to fuck it up,” he’d whispered, swallowing and unable to look away.

“Naw,” Jason had said, voice curled into something Roy hadn’t been able to understand. “Not this. Not _you_. You couldn’t. You’re not that person.”

Roy had looked up, startled at the confidence, but Jason hadn’t looked away. Lian had looked at him like that in the dark and Roy couldn’t help but rise to be who they believed him to be. He’d gotten on a plane that night. He had a promise to keep that he hadn’t meant to make.

“I’m just one person, Jay.”

He shook himself out of his thoughts as the train took an easy curve to start edging around Millar Bay towards the Diamond district. He couldn’t see Robinson Park, but it was there. The car lit up as the train approached a platform and the girls stood up, gum crackling and the bangles a delicate metallic clatter. He caught one girl glance over at him, size him up briefly, and give him a smile like a dare. He huffed, tossing her a quick harmless wink, and turned back to the glass. He was dressed in his civvies, just the battered wranglers, a band shirt, and a soft flannel over top. Gotham was miserable and muggy, but at night it left a slick chill behind. He’d swiveled the battered trucker hat backwards on his head so he could rest his temple against the glass, rest and let his mind lay fallow as he moved through this city towards the contact the newest Robin had arranged.

The car closed up, rocking slightly before lurching into motion again. He looked up, spotting a potted ficus struggle in a large cement pot that served as the small bit of landscaping on the outdoor platform, and watched someone scramble frantically into view, stopping on a quick skid that pulled them into a quick three-point stance before finding their feet again. They looked terrified in every line of body language in the mundane washed out hoodie. He felt the moment their eyes locked on him like he’d been struck. 

“Jaybird?”

A train screamed past the station as Roy straightened, trying to figure out where the man had gone, but the pace of the cars, a quick blitz of light and sound passed, and the platform was empty again. A white styrofoam cup kicked and bounced with the remaining wind of the train to skip lightly over the edge and onto the tracks, settled into shadow, and Roy was in motion again.

Roy usually liked to ride inside the trains. He liked to feel close to the people of a city. Star City had a smooth monorail, something that exhaled silently between stops and blinked soft chimes to indicate the doors opening. It was bright and well lit, arrowing through the city below, just skimming the edges of the Sound, curling around the steep rise in elevation like a banking gull. It was beautiful, like a silvery ribbon stitching the city together.

"Robin took me to ride the trains," Connor had told Roy when he'd come back from Gotham the first time; his smile serene under a wild glitter in his green eyes. He'd been using the bristle brush to work the conditioner into his curl pattern, eyes focused over his bare brown shoulder at where Roy had been leaning in the doorway to the bathroom. 

"Inside the train or-?"

" _On top_." Connor Hawke was calm like a deep water. It reminded Roy of Crater Lake in Oregon, perfectly clear and beautiful, a stunning sapphire blue. It was serene and calm, crisp and quiet with a dark sky that would roll out the Milky Way in welcome as chipmunks scampered along the cement trails to devour the spring flowers. Roy had watched the tourists take picture after picture, had watched Lian and Gamble run sprints back and forth between trail markers as he followed along, looking at the island in the center of the lake where it was draped in evergreen.

He'd never forgotten that it was a volcano underneath. 

His brother had been thrumming with a barely bridled excitement, the kind that would take days to dissipate with concerted effort. Roy had known that feeling from the inside. Roy had let people believe he was the wild one, but anyone who had watched Dick Grayson cling to the top of a moving train with finger tips, toes, and the breathless irrepressible feral joy knew better.

Now, Connor did too. 

"Don't get too attached," Roy had cautioned. "Bats don't transplant well."

Connor had nodded, but Roy remembered the way his smile curled when Tim, when Robin, called. He still saw it on his own face sometimes.

The edge between the fashion district and the Diamond district was a glittering roundabout that was capped with a large fountain that even the homeless didn't fish in for coins. There was something sacrosanct about wishes, especially in Gotham. The train huffed a pneumatic sound before the click and soft disharmonic squeal of the brakes. The train rocked side to side, settling into the stop as Roy reached, grabbing the metal pole and heaving to his feet. He waited a moment as the crowd clustered to the door and departed, the air a sticky-warm slap filled with the sound of voices, battling car radios, the scream of sirens in the distance, and something distinctly human. 

The air smelled like gasoline and grit, the weight of the sea fog blurring everything higher than three stories up, just general shapes and flashes between columns of dark before limpid pools of clear bright street light. The puddles were never still in Gotham, vibrating from the trains and the rumble of people on the move. Roy shoved his hands in his pockets, watching a pickpocket duck and apologize his way through the disembarking crowd, smacking the kid's hand and tossing him a quick frown.

The kid turned on a heel, flicked him off with both hands, and then scowled back into his careful looting. Roy checked his wallet, just in case. He was hopping down the stairs from the platform to the street when he realized he wasn't alone. The pickpocket had fallen into an easy step next to him, feet nimble as they rumbled down the stairs.

"Jesus, kid," Roy muttered, slanting the boy an annoyed look. "I'm going to fucking bell you."

"Promise?" Tim was nearly unrecognizable wearing a ratty white t-shirt to make him look broader through the shoulders, a heavy gold watch that dwarfed his wrist, a septum ring, matching gold hoops, and joggers that were shoved up over one startlingly ripped calf to showcase a pair of vintage sneakers. He had on a loose beanie, massive headphones, and the sort of easy angular stride that made it seem like he was from the Narrows instead of the soft posh accent he'd heard before. Roy was sure one day he'd meet the real Tim.

"What’s the name?"

"Alvin."

"Call me Al?" Roy asked, choking on the snort as he shook his head.

"Uh, sure. I guess?"

"Paul Simon? _Graceland_?" The kid looked amused and shook his head, picking up the pace and forcing Roy to jog to follow. "Fuck off. You make me feel old. Jesus."

"I would be insulted," Tim shrugged; his smirk suddenly nothing but Robin in the quick amused arch of brow. "But you're not wrong."

"I'm starting to understand why Jay wants to kill you," Roy told him seriously, snapping his metrocard against the turnstile while Tim simply vaulted it, grinning widely and throwing his arms out as he walked backwards. 

"Okay, Boomer," he drawled, rolling his eyes before reaching behind him and holding up Roy's wallet with a little shake. "We have to grab treats."

"Mother _fucker_ ," Roy grumbled, slipping past a group of giggling college students who smelled like Bath and Body Works vanilla and cucumber with a wide smile before following Tim where he was blending easily into the crowd. 

Gotham was a patchwork of people and problems stitched together with cement and a certain gritty determination that had its populace walking with heads up and one hand constantly curled around something in their pockets. They schooled like wary fish, pooling at corners to half wait for a break in traffic to stream out past the yelling cab drivers and then waning enough to let the next chunky bit of traffic through to the roundabout.

Tim turned down an alley that smelled like piss and roasted garlic, the dumpster half-open next to the back entrance of a small expensive italian restaurant. A dishwasher was smoking as he pulled shiny black trash bags to set, watching them pass with a vague wary disinterest. He replied to Roy's brief nod with a sniff and an exhale. Roy tried to ignore the flickering scatter of roaches when they passed the small dented dumpster. He ignored the almost instinctive crawl of his skin at the sight.

Tim led him through Gotham with a practiced ease, and Roy could feel the way the city was watching him. It wasn't his city, just borrowed for a bit of trouble and pain. He glanced behind him, focused quickly on the slick flicker of something pale slipping under a pile of cardboard.

"She loves the churros from the cart on Broad," Tim said after they turned into a darkened street, the businesses shuttered in the evening. He handed Roy his wallet back.

"How'd you meet her?"

Tim's face looked older as Alvin, an artful bit of artificial stubble and a scar over the bridge of a contoured nose. "Jason saved her, too." He shrugged, hands stuffed into his joggers as he stared at the ground. He stopped himself from kicking at a weed, careful of his sneakers. “Well, Hemlock did. Semantics.”

Roy stumbled slightly, glaring at where the sidewalk was heaved up from a tree root, and then looked at Tim as they moved out of the quiet shuttered dark of this part of the Diamond district onto the broad avenue that drifted along the edge of Robinson Park. Roy stopped, staring at the soft slow blink of red lights at the top of the reservoir. They were visible as a scumbled aching glow, filtered and blurred through the fog that obscured the tangle of trees, the push of rocky hills, and the slow inexorable push of the river to the sea.

The street was lined with gnarled sycamores, elderly maple, and half-hearted streetlights, the kind that were supposed to look vintage and quaint, like people would want to stroll with linked hands through the warm romantic glow along the edge of the cobblestone river rock wall that Roy was sure was built to keep the forest in instead of keeping people out. The entrances were spaced at each block, high corniced capstones with delicate wrought iron gates that held polished brass plaques naming the path just beyond. Some had animal faces, others were brackish and black with the patina of age, the settled soot marking them as unsafe. He wanted to know why certain plaques had shiny polished bits until a street walker sauntered past them, looking at Roy in invitation over her shoulder, thighs bruised under the broken fishnet but steps sure in her clunky spiked heels. He watched her trace the letter E on the sign with a wink.

"Each bathroom in the park is marked on the map with a different letter," Tim explained, turning and tugging Roy to follow him to the white cart that was plopped in the no parking lane and crisp with the smell of fried dough, street corn, and cinnamon. "You can find her in-"

"She doesn't have anything I'm looking for, Al. I don't pay for sex." 

Tim shrugged. "The girls feel safe with him in the park. That's why I was so curious when Gingersnap refused to take tricks there."

"Gingersnap?"

"They like to sound like something you eat." Tim held up two fingers to the truck, ordering in shitty Spanish that the woman with long black hair streaked with silver rolled her eyes over fondly, calling back the order in a decibel just short of a shriek. 

"Get some elotes," Roy interrupted, digging his wallet out. "I haven't had good ones since-"

"You want hot dogs when you could have fuckin' street corn? Jesus, Harper. Your white boy is showing." Jason had looked scandalized, reaching and grabbing him by the wrist with a big warm hand scuffed with callouses. Roy had wondered if he’d grow into those wrists. It had been a brief hot thought he’d swept away. Roy had followed with a laugh, stumbling through the New York sunshine as it caught reddish highlights in Jason's curls.

"Sure, okay." Tim tacked onto his order easily.

Tim settled back a few steps, waiting just between the edges of three different street lights, finding a small pool of shadow to cock his head up at Roy. "She's different. From what I can tell, she's from somewhere else? She didn't start tricking until recently. No prior check-ins to the Clinic until a few months back. The Park has been... different. Usually Hemlock and Ivy stay quiet, but he definitely doesn't take kindly to johns roughing up th-"

"Yeah, that makes sense," Roy interrupted, looking over his shoulder. A branch scraped along the top of the high stone wall, a flutter of leaves setting off a feeling of continuous movement that was crawling along his nerves. He was sure that he'd seen something bone pale slip back out of the corner of his eye. "Jason was always rougher on the rapists. He had some rules, you know? You don't hurt women and you don't hurt kids."

"Except-" Tim cut off with an audible snap, whole body going rigid in a barely visible twitch as he forced his hand back down from where it had started to lift. Roy's eyes flicked up, finding the pale ridge of a scar on the boy's neck, covered with careful makeup. 

They both knew that Robins weren’t allowed to be kids, not really.

"So, Ginger?" The silence had stretched and Roy couldn't find an easy way to change the subject. 

"She's a little weird."

"How weird is weird?"

Tim rolled his eyes, kicking into a quick jog when his number was called to collect the large styrofoam cup of corn, cheese, and indescribable goodness for Roy and a handful of cinnamon sugar confections for the girls. They worked their way from one corner to the next, Roy letting the working girls coo over Alvin with a snort before noting the way they avoided the small alcove further along. Roy could see pale bare feet, pale bruised thighs, and a stained blanket. 

“Who’s that?” 

“That’s Gingersnap. Let me do the talking. Like I said, she’s a little... weird.”

Tim made a soft trilling noise as they approached where she was sitting on the ground, thighs spread and heels tucked into the edge of a planter, flat on her back and hair tangled and puddled under her head on the ratty blanket. She turned, pale and gibbous as the moon with a wide freckled face framed with strawberry blonde snarls. She had colorless eyebrows and eyelashes, dark eyes lidded like a frog over a button nose and full mouth. She was beautiful and hideous in equal measure, alien and sexual as she clapped delightedly and pulled her heels out of the dirt and rolled to clamber to her feet as Tim held up the churros. 

“Hey Alvin? You’re pronouncing insane wrong,” Roy muttered, watching the way the girl was talking to herself in a subvocal hush as she peeled a leave in slow careful tugs to leave the lacy structure behind.

"Hey, Snaps. Brought you somethin'. Figured you might be hungry and shit," Tim said around a liquid Narrows accent. Roy blinked. He sounded like Jason. 

"Alvin-baby! Did you- oh." She held out her hands, the pale freckled skin filthy with dark dirt crusted under broken nails. She was wearing what amounted to an over large men’s tank top that skimmed her thighs. Roy could see the weight of her breasts, almost see the pink of her nipples. She had finger shaped bruises on her arms, at the edge of her jaw and along her thighs. She started to pull up the left side of her hem, tugging up to flash them a bit of lacy pale blue underwear. "Baby... you brought a frie-"

The girl stopped, narrowed her eyes at Roy and dropped the hem, dropped the act, and stared at him in the loose pool of lamplight that caught her in half tones. "You. We told you to go away."

Roy had a surreal startled moment of recognition. He knew her. He’d met her. She was older, but the same sort of cinnamon colored freckles moved over her eyelids, eyebrows and lashes still that same pale colorless red-gold. She looked like a broken bit of polished river agate, pale and striped with red. Roy had remembered her as some undetermined teen- some girl who was tasked with watching Ivy’s children, her collected grafted seedlings that ran wild and barefoot through the park. He hadn’t seen her since she’d collected her feral pack of charges and disappeared into the brambles on light feet. 

The cognitive dissonance struck him. Gotham was growing when he was away. Jason would have been twenty this year, adult and broad with those dimples dug deep like they were waiting for Roy’s thumbs. 

“You aren’t in your park.” Gingersnap was the teen girl he’d met in Grant Park. She’d been there that night. Roy took a chance, repeating the word the children had prayed to each other. "Eden?"

"You don't say that. You don't get to say that. You're not allowed!" The girl twisted her hands into the front of her shirt, pulling and stretching it. She didn't care about the way it was pulling her skin visible, pulling away from to flash her breasts, lifting over her thighs and higher to show deep pink scars that stretched over her stomach, striping her like something had been lashed and leashed around her. Her pale skin was pebbled with the darker ropey scars of a deep puncture. Roy noted absently that they were cleaner than a bullet hole and messier than knife wounds. She was pocked and broken. She was scowling, shaking and pulling at her clothes like they were trapping her. 

Tim moved before Roy could even think to respond, caught in the surprise of her rage turned inward. "Hey, shhhh." He was using the Robin voice, the soft sure tone that stayed steady for children and trauma victims. "You're okay. You're out. It's safe. He's safe. You're free, okay? Can you look at me, Ginger? Come on, you can look at me, right?" He smiled, soft and crooked. It was disarming. "That's it. Good. Breathe with me, Ginger?"

She nodded, eyes flicking to him after a moment, taking a long shaky breath in as she started to let go of the stretched cotton of the shirt, letting her skin hide again. She pointed at Roy like he was a thief. "He was there. He took Gabriel."

Tim glanced over his shoulder at Roy before reaching to carefully curl the girl's fingers around the paper wrapped churros. "He's here to help, Ginger. Don't worry. I'm sure he's very sorry."

The girl deflated, huffing and lifting the confection to nibble at, mouth soft in a pout before she glanced over at Tim from under the tangled mess of her hair. "I like these."

"I know you do." The boy smiled and stepped back, slipping into the Alvin character so seamlessly Roy would have missed it if he hadn't seen the slight way his weight settled like a dare into his body. "We want to know what Hemlock is doing. We know he helped you."

"I didn't do what I was told," the girl whispered, ducking low to whisper even as she reached to touch the shiny gold of Tim's watch. "I didn't want to give Nicky to the green." She nodded. 

“Give who?” Roy asked, wetting his lips and starting to follow the way the girl was aimlessly wandering backwards.

“Who, he asks,” Gingersnap muttered, rolling her eyes and turning to the wall and leaning close. “Who? Who else? Nicky. He was my job.”

“Yeah?” Tim asked, Alvin’s accent sitting high on his tongue as he cocked his head for the girl to continue. “Was he a trick?”

The girl nodded. Roy wanted to reach out and stop her. She was getting close to the next entrance, but he tightened his hands on the cup of elotes to keep the shake hidden.

"He wasn't like the rest, you know? He was mine. Nicky was sweet on me. He'd bring me candy, you know? The kind I liked. He didn't... he didn't touch me like the other men. He didn't want to. He just wanted to draw me. He was an artist, you know? He- I mean, he did, just not- he was good. Just kept bringing me pretty things and telling me that I was smart. I didn't want... I didn't want him to be useful the other way."

"What's the other way?" Roy asked before he could reconsider, looking down to make himself seem less threatening as he poked at the corn in the cup with a plastic spork.

"They want it. They always go willing. Then the _Rot_..." The girl opened her mouth, snarling and took a huge bite of the churro, mumbling happy grumbles as she chewed, swallowing broadly and sighing. 

Roy had a moment of clear remembrance, a scrap of a dream where Jason had been standing on the end of the couch, arm up as he quoted Shakespeare with a laughing mouth, voice a deep imitation of the same elegant accent Alfred sported. “And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe.” Roy had been watching the way he’d rocked his hips, suggestive and in time with the lilt of words. “And then from hour to hour we rot and rot.” Jason had rolled the r’s and then looked straight at where Roy was hot and blotchy, eyes transfixed to the way he let the last line linger like a dare, palming himself in dirty smeared jeans, hands covered in dirty and fingernails black as his skin started to ripple like a seed cracking to life. He was fading and going green, glowing and velvet like the warm hot heat of Ivy’s tunnels. “And thereby hangs a tale.”

“What’s the Rot, Ginger? Some sort of-”

"It's not a sacrifice. The green never dies." She shook her head, sinuous as the creep of a sweet pea vine before pouting at Tim and clutching his wrist, lips flecked with the soft sugar cinnamon as she leaned close. "Nicky? He said my name when it took him. I was still scared.” Ginger leaned forward, whispering. “I ran. She caught me. She was going to help me back to the Green, but I was screaming." 

She shrugged, snapping through another bite before pushing closer to where Tim was slowly managing to stay just a breath outside of the way she was trying to press close. "Nicky was there. He was waiting for me."

The girl's face looked young, just barely twenty, and longing etched in the loose hollows under her cheekbones, eyes welling dark, red rimmed with tears. She sniffled, licking the sugar off her lips with a slow practiced plump pop. She was shaking, tremors running along her lanky pale limbs, her toes curling as she twisted and continued to reach and pluck at where Tim was standing. "Alvin baby," she whispered, earnest. "Would you wait for me too?"

"How did you get away?" Roy asked, interrupting her as Tim started to look uncomfortable under the macho persona he was wearing like loose clothing. The girl had pushed him nearly against the wall in her attempts to get against him. 

“Same as you did.” She snorted, widening her eyes. “You don’t. You don’t get away. He has you. You _already know_." She tilted her eyes to the side and held Roy's gaze blankly. "Dying is an art, like everything else. He does it so well."

"What-?"

"Can you help us find someone?" Tim continued as he plucked the girl's hands from himself, an easy dance of deflection until the girl huffed and shoved him back against the ivy-covered wall and looked at Roy. 

“Who?” 

Tim ignored the sharp wariness that had clattered into the girl’s voice. “Hemlock.”

"No. He doesn't want _you_ there." 

“What about-?” Gingersnaps darted, ducked close to him and reached to touch his mouth to stop Tim from finishing the question. She clucked, shaking her head, and then leaned back, reaching for Roy and grabbing at his shirt, tugging him after her as she backed up, leaving Tim to follow.

“You hungry, baby?” She slipped her fingers into her mouth, sucking like an invitation, eyes dark and hair wild. "They say I look like her when they pay me. You know better though. It's not her you dream about."

Roy could only place the knot in his lungs as shame, squeezing once in a quick vicious curl as the girl moved closer in a quick skitter, hands settling on his hips and tucking between his shirt and his skin. She pulled him as she smiled up at him. Her touch felt rough, calloused and crass with dirt and broken nails. Her knuckles reddened and ruddy as she pressed closed, pulling at him as he choked back the way he wanted to deny it.

He wanted her to be wrong even as he shivered at the spiderweb curl of memory, the phantom touch of a mouth to the back of his neck, the weight of his hair shifting to the side as he let his body writhe in the dark, in the quiet shadows of his room. Roy had felt reckless with wanting in the dark, wanting what he couldn't touch.

Jason's gaze had always felt like a dare. He’d tasted flowers that morning. 

"What are you hiding?" Jason had asked once when he’d been wearing a Robin suit and the blush of life. He’d had his back against the windows on the outside of the exterior elevator, the snowstorm outside clutching the whole side of the mountain in white. They’d had a mission, the first with Jason as Robin. Roy had been cold, the weight of his suit sitting easy on his frame as he'd pretended not to feel Jason's searching gaze. He had shoved the urge to shift and pace down, letting it coil dark and guilty under his lungs.

"Everyone has secrets, Robin," he'd managed. He’d been fighting the cognitive dissonance of Jason in Dick’s suit. Dick needed touch and Roy had been fighting the urge to touch Jason.

Jason had opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but settled into a violent sort of silence instead. It was the kind of silence that could cut if someone moved. Roy had been eighteen and lonely in his bones. It was a special kind of loneliness that stained crowds.

"We're only as sick as our secrets," Jason had whispered and Roy had been sure the kid was looking at him from behind the whiteout lenses on the mask. Roy had been sure that Jason didn't look away as Roy looked back. He hadn't asked how the kid knew the mantra of recovery. He'd heard the crack in his voice when he'd talked about Catherine Todd. He knew what loss sounded like.

"I'm clean."

"Good." Jason had nodded once before Robin smiled at Roy, blinding and painful. Jason's smile felt like a demand. This smile had felt like a bomb.

"- be so good to you," Gingersnap was whispering, mouth warm and alive as she pressed against his front. 

"No." Roy caught her wrists, squeezing slightly and pulling her away with the kind of gentle care he had learned by potting plants, by holding a tangle of silvery roots against his palm to tug and settle. It was a delicate thing, uprooting a plant that wanted to stay, wanted to thrive and push deep into the earth where it had settled. "Thank you."

She sighed and shuttered, eyes going a glossy dazed that meant she'd packed up and pulled away inside. She wavered, patting at his chest and then stole the cup of corn, not bothering with the spoon and simply scooped it into her mouth. She sat down heavily and leaned back against a metal-grated trash can. Roy watched one spider draw away, the web shifting back and forth in the breeze like the inside of a lung. He noticed another spider. Another, swallowing before shoving the natural shivered terror at the small fat bodies and spindly legs. Gingersnap didn’t notice or didn’t care. He wondered if they would slip into her hair. 

The girl folded up and spread her thighs, open for business even as she kicked a rock - a few black-backed beetles scurried, disjointed and lurching, from underneath to sprint for the next dark warm place to hide. 

"I think sometimes," she started, breathy as she scooped another mouthful and stared solidly forward. "That I should have gone with Nicky. At least he wanted me."

Tim looked at Roy, face inscrutable for a moment before Alvin draped over him again and he hunkered down in front of the girl, touching light fingers to her ankle. Roy wondered if Tim understood how much it hurt to be waiting and wanting to be wanted. "You can get help. You can come in out-"

"No," the girl snickered, shaking her head and gazing at Tim like the boy was an idiot. "Eden is coming. You can't stop it. Neither can he. It's waiting, the Garden. It's waiting for the end of the world. The Green is patient. Eden will be glorious and I..."

Gotham went quiet, terrifying and silent. It stunned Roy, forcing his head up as he watched the way everything had stopped, a seven second silence - the pause in the natural beat of the world. He watched the trees flutter, the silver underside of the maple winking at him like a promise over the edge of the stone wall. It waved to him like the curl of inviting fingers.

"She loves- she loves us so much. She wants us. It's Eden."

"Where can we find her? Can you help me reach the Green lady?" Roy asked, ignoring the soft noise Tim made like his throat clicked on a dry swallow. He hunkered down, draping his forearms over his thighs and looked at the girl. "Can you show me where?"

"You've already _been there_. You don't need my help." The girl swallowed, cupping the styrofoam cup between her palms and looked at Roy then, lost and wide-eyed, broken open and helplessly sad. Roy knew that look, knew how much he'd tried to hide from feeling it from the inside. He knew it so desperately he couldn't look away. He huffed a breath and sat beside her, letting her head fall onto his shoulder as she swiped at the last bits of elotes with her finger. “You know the way.”

Gotham shoved to life again with the screech of tires and the heavy heady blare of a horn. Humanity sounded angry against the soft rustle of the Park.

"Is Gabriel okay? It stopped talking to me. The Green. It stopped talking to me and I miss it. I miss it. Does he miss it? Did you want him?"

"I love him more than you can know," Roy answered. It wasn't a secret. "He's my son."

"Don't go," she told him, hushed and still that raw broken honesty. "Don't go. It won't let you go again." She swallowed. "He needs you."

"I have to."

"You'll die."

"Not easily."

The girl reached, tucking a loose strand of Roy's long red hair back behind his ear. She was comforting him. "You'll want to."

Roy swallowed, leaned in, and told her the truth. "Wouldn't be the first time."

She turned, tucking her face against his and he could smell her this close, the warm rank smell of unwashed skin and dirt. She smelled loamy and foul, hair the sort of greasy weight that matted. She smelled like a scab and like something used and left behind. Roy knew that smell. He knew it from flophouses and back alleys. He knew the way it tasted on his tongue as he sank back into darkness, sank under into the soft perfect gold of denial and drugs. He knew the smell of something that had given up fighting. 

"My mom OD'ed," Jason had said, hand tight on Roy's wrist as he'd looked at the scars at the inside of Roy's arm that he didn't bother hiding. Arizona had been cold under the blanket of stars, the vista gone blank and endless. They'd been safe in the flickering circle of the fire. Jason had moved to sit next to him. He'd simply picked himself up and crossed silently around the edge of the fire ring to plop next to where Roy had been staring deep into the crackling glow of embers. He'd been quiet for a long time after Roy had made a joke about himself. "I wasn't there to take care of her. I'd... I should have been there."

"No." Roy hadn't pulled his arm back, just looked at the scars that tracked over his vein. "It doesn't really work like that, Jay." Jason had touched him for the first time then, touched him with intent. Roy had tucked his bottom lip over his teeth and watched Jason's fingers at the inside of his elbow. "One person can't save us. Even if she wanted to stop for you, it doesn't- it doesn't work like that."

"I wish it did." Jason had pulled his hand back, tucking under the sleeping bag he was wearing like a blanket wrapped tight around him. 

"Yeah, me too, man. Me too."

Roy hadn't realized then that he'd always be waiting for Jason to touch him again.

"Harper," Tim's voice cut into the soft reverie and Roy leaned back, looking over his shoulder at Tim. "We need to go." He wasn't looking at them, head tilted slightly up, and Roy turned.

The stone wall was writhing. 

The river rocks were shifting, the mortar crumbling as bisected legs crept through small cracks. It was a withering wave of antennae. He could hear them - a chittering glistening slick of beetle backs and the undulating creep of ivy that was heaving and shoving itself away from the wall. The trees were groaning like they wanted to lean and push at the wall around them. The ivy itself was flopping, boneless and needy to reach towards them. He watched the way a curled coil of tendrils wagged like a nagging finger before jerking forward, grabbing for them and falling to skitter and sway along the cement. It slithered back to them, stroking a leafy touch over the girls' fingers. She watched, wide-eyed with the impossible hope of a junkie.

"Nicky?" The vine slipped over her touch, threading to curl and clutch at her like it wanted to hold hands. It wanted to lead her into the dark. The girl started crying, ecstatic as she rolled to the side and started reaching back to the living wall that reached for her. "Nicky! I missed you, baby. Oh, please."

"Hold her! We need to go. Now!"

Roy hadn't realized he was clinging to the girl's other wrist, both hands holding her in place as the park tried to pull her, while she rolled and struggled against his hold. "Wait, don't-"

"One person?" Jason had repeated the morning after Roy had met his daughter for the first time, confused and awkward at the door to his room. The snow had been blinding outside, just the soft scuff of it against the glass as Roy had been staring down at the girl in his hands, the weight of her head perfect in his palm. "It could be enough if it's the right person. Right?"

"Maybe," Roy had whispered, owned by the soft suckle of Lian's mouth in sleep. He'd looked up, watching where Jason had been blank-faced in his doorway. The boy had changed out of the Robin suit and was wearing the leather jacket, a careful caution in the line of his mouth. Roy had wanted to look back down at his daughter, but something caught in his throat. "Maybe, Jaybird. If they actually want to be saved."

Gingersnap snarled against his hold, yanking him forward and biting at the edge of his wrist, vicious and perfectly cruel. Roy startled, yelping in pain as she twisted out of his grip. She tossed him one bloody, beatific smile and waved as the vine curled around her like a lover's arm and yanked. She didn't scream even as it dragged her over the cement, skinning her heels, her elbows, and snatched her around the corner into the dark. 

Roy coiled, ready to sprint when Jason stepped out of the darkness, eyes glowing red and staring at him. This thing, this green wild thing with the soft black curls and Jason’s strong jaw blocked his way. It was like being set on fire, stunned to a stop and breathless as they stared at each other from opposite sides of the entrance. The girl was gone, just a smear of skin and blood on the cement before a soft furrow of earth covered over again and left no trace of her behind. Jason shook his head, the weight of the warning a soft zig-zagged trail of glowing red pulsing in the shadows. He watched the creature take a step back, slipping into the shadows.

“Jay! Wait!”

"Roy! Don't!" Tim managed to kick him in the back of the knee as he tried to follow, picking and planting him face down on the cement as the world just continued around them. The city didn't care that the girl was gone. Gotham had already left her behind. "We need a plan."

“It would be like walking through hell,” Roy had continued, voice hushed as he held Jason’s eyes. “It could kill them.”

Jason had looked away first, glancing down at where Lian’s dark head was cradled in Roy’s broad palms. He’d watched the way the baby had been swaddled and breathing, eyes closed and nose tiny. Her head had fit in Roy’s palm, the weight of her so slight against his forearm. Jason had watched her breathe and swallowed, wetting his lips and looking up at Roy. He’d been something in that second before he’d closed up again, something open and raw. He’d looked lost and like hope; he’d looked like potential under the thick dark cowlicks and deep incredible blue of his eyes. He hadn’t looked beautiful like Dick. 

Roy had thought idly, just for a breath, that he was something _more_.

“Some people are worth it,” Jason had said, earnest and rasping before he’d used the doorframe to roll back out into the hallway and out of sight.

Roy closed his eyes, shaking under the careful weight of the newest Robin pinning him down. He shook and exhaled. He felt bereft. He'd felt the same way when he'd looked back up from the count of Lian's breaths and Jason was gone.

"I fuckin' hate this," he whispered.

"Then help me solve it," Tim answered, just the smallest crack of fear under the bland tone. "We can't just run into Ivy's turf without a plan. She'll just kill us both."

Tim wrestled Roy onto his back, glaring down at him. He didn’t look young; he looked firm and determined in the dark. Roy wondered how many people he’d lost that he could hold his center together while he was bleeding. Roy had never forgotten what it felt like to lose his grip.

“Why are you doing this?” He shouldn’t have asked, but the questions were the first thing that returned to this life, dragging him behind them almost willingly.

“He was my hero.” Tim’s throat worked and Roy wanted him in costume suddenly, in the domino and the armor, not this soft white t-shirt and regret. “He wouldn’t have hesitated.”

“Maybe he should have.”

“Wouldn’t have been him,” Tim answered, letting go of Roy’s shirt and pushing carefully to his feet. Roy could feel the way he was watching him warily, ready to tackle him again. “Jason never backed down. Not when he could help.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” 

“I usually am,” Tim managed, smirk reflexive. It was a look that could gut the unprepared. Roy was used to bleeding for Robins.

He could count the scars that he’d gotten chasing the high of Dick’s smiles. He could count the nights he’d dreamed of Jason’s smiles in the dark. Tim watched him from behind the costume of Alvin Draper, the gold in his nose and his ear glittering as the headlights of a car stroked over where they stood as it took a turn. He’d lost the black beanie and his silky black hair was silky- blue highlights cold against his pale skin. This Robin was made of ice and stone. The boy’s elbow was bleeding, a smear of tacky blood on the white shirt. 

“Now what?” Tim asked him when he’d pulled back to his feet, touching the tacky blood at his elbow with a scowl. It had felt rhetorical, like he was working through a puzzle and had accidentally spoken aloud.

“Now nothing. I need to sleep. You need to have someone look at that. We can reconvene tomorrow. You should probably get B. I’ll check in on N.” 

“You need a ride?”

“I know how you fuckers drive. No way in hell. I’ll get a cab.” Roy moved to the curb before turning and pointing at where Tim was standing. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare try to go back in there alone.”

He didn’t wait for the boy to nod, just moved the hand to flag a cab. The mundane felt like a reprieve in Gotham. The act of sliding into the back seat of a yellow taxi. The act of mumbling an address. The small talk eating up the city blocks as Roy tipped his head against the window, the airconditioning circling a thick cloying smell of car deodorizers. The cabbie was a thin white man with heavy hooded eyes and thin colorless lips. He didn’t talk, didn’t offer smiles. Roy was grateful, closing his eyes and seeing Jason’s face looking at him. 

Gotham had old oaks on the richer streets, old growth that shaded the quiet residential streets. 

“Let me out here,” he choked, needing to be in the quiet before the sharp edged silence of the penthouse. He shoved money through the small break in the glass and stumbled onto the sidewalk. A small dog barked behind a window of a brick townhouse that would slowly fade out until the larger high rises started spiking high to pierce the low haze. He felt leaves in his hair, ducking and then turning to pull the small branch from his shoulder. 

A matched set of potted ferns waved like sea creatures, following the tide of the muggy Gotham air to trace light over his wrist. A potted plant hopped from its perch on the iron lattice of a fire escape, the sudden shattering noise followed by a muffled laugh. He glanced up, watching two teens press against each other- the slick sound of sex drifting.

Roy almost picked up the broken bits of the green woody rosemary, but stepped over it instead.

He made it to the penthouse and Dick was waiting at the kitchen island, frustration tucked into his shoulders even as Roy just looked at him.

“We lost her,” Roy managed. 

Dick pushed back on straight arms, faded Gotham U t-shirt stretching over his chest and thighs bare under the edge of his loose boxers. He was golden and beautiful. Roy wanted something crooked and his. “Do you-?”

“Later,” Roy swallowed and let Dick take care of him this time, let him undo the buttons on his shirt, pull the hem of his t-shirt from his skin, bend to untie the laces of his boots like he was offering benediction. 

Roy watched his hand drop, watched his pale freckled fingers card into Dick’s crackling black hair. It felt like goodbye. It felt real this time.

Dick pulled him into bed, pulled the covers over him, and pulled him close. “I got you.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.” Dick sighed and shifted, making room for Roy. This was familiar. This felt safe.

He closed his eyes. He wished that had been his first mistake. 

The room didn’t shift, just stilled and sank deep into the quiet, the edges of the shadows starting to haze, soft fronds of black skittering at the edges of his vision. He could feel the rise and fall of Dick’s chest under his hand. The details didn’t change, just went gaussian and crumbling, eaten away in stop-motion jumps. The bed dipped and Roy could feel the eyes of a predator at his back, skin pulling aware and cold. He’d felt the touch of soft skin to the back of his neck, the blush of breath like the drafting tickle of a leaf caught in his hair. 

It was here with him in the dark.

He could smell it and without anything changing he’d known he was dreaming. He’d forced his breathing even when the mud-stained fingers slipped into sight, skipping and disjointed like the knuckles didn’t make sense yet, too mechanical and not the slow undulating press it wanted. The touch skipped against his freckles like a stone over water before the fear pressed against his back fully, smelling of dry rotting leaves and green sap like he could taste the thing. The touch felt intimate as it smoothed down his arm to curl around his wrist. Roy had known it was a dream when he was tugged away from Dick. There was a noise that sounded like a scoff, like jealousy, a flicker of green that slithered over the sheets to twist over the bone of his ankle, and the press of something thorny against his bare skin. He focused on the muddy hand and swallowed the name as he rolled, turning into the tug to be caught in green eyes under black curls. 

Roy turned and fell into the tangled net that the creature wearing Jason like a skinsuit pulled over them like a blanket, its mouth moving in a soft-whispered silence, just fitting the words between tongue and lips and teeth. It looked like admonishment, but the world felt terrifying and off kilter. Jason’s face was talking, but Roy was surrounded by the soft growing buzz of a meadow, the insect feel and the shimmering soft shake of leaves. The green hiss of wet wood burning.

It snarled, and Roy, frozen in the horror of a dream, watched the way Jason was silently screaming, hacking at the green and clawing higher to sit close to its surface. Roy felt the prickle of his arm hair catching under the velvet touch of its fingers smearing mud along the inside of his elbow. He wanted this to be Jason. He wanted to reach back and help pull.

Roy needed in a way that felt like being struck, wanted in a way that curled ghostlike back up his arm, tripping and tangling and sprawling in the soft blanket of green that prickled into him, pricked at him and sank deep roots where he bled.

"Found you," he breathed into the way its mouth had closed over his, the kiss unfurling and spiraling into him. He drowned in the touch, buried by the weight of it as he pushed his fingers between them to touch at its breath like this creature was Jason. Like Jason was a thing that lived, like a thing that breathed, like he was a thing that wanted Roy.

Roy opened in his sleep and Jason crept forward, pressing into and around him, swallowing him in the slow reach and sway of a vine in the wind. Roy opened, helpless and desperate for something that could feel like a smile that was only his.

"Jay?"

Jason shifted, the rutted rock of hips. He opened his mouth, watching Roy move with him. He opened his mouth and Roy _needed_. Jason was stunning, perfect and blue-eyed, watching him as he shook. Jason flickered into focus, flushed and desperate, mouth smearing into a kiss that felt like a first, like a fist. Roy heard the helpless little sound that followed. He felt the way the green crept in, crept closer, inexorable and unrelenting until he was shifting helpless against the black of a deep jungle, of the ancient touch of a dangerous violent thing.

He breathed Jason's name to the eyes that glowed red in the black.

"Eden," was all it said, shattering the dream as Roy screamed awake.

“You’re looking in the wrong place,” Roy had managed later, panting in the corner of the shower Dick had wrestled him into. Dick had been drenched, black hair flat to his head and grey Gotham U t-shirt plastered to the endless bright muscle of him. Roy had covered his face, still shivering at the feel of Jason’s mouth on his. “It’s not in Robinson Park. It’s in Grant. I know where it is.”

Roy hadn't stepped foot in Grant Park in nearly five years, leaving it behind in the past where it belonged. In his mind, it’d stayed the same, caught in the amber-colored street lights as a tarnished silver tangle of brambles, sycamores’ scaly white bones that bent low, supplicant, along the edges of the rock-lined creek that fed into a tributary of the Gotham River before it flowed out to slip into the sea. He remembered the gazebo as a solid decorative structure slowly being swallowed by the creep of wisteria, just the pale bottoms of a homeless man's feet where he'd slept presented to the night.

He remembered it in moments, the rustle of a branch, the soft pout of a child. He remembered it in the aching heave of blackberry brambles as they marched in the ongoing war against the ivy that snaked over the boulders inset into the small hill before rolling out to the meadow. In his mind, it wasn't a place for people. In his mind, the arched stone entrance with its pretty wrought iron gates was a graveyard.

The Green was waiting for him, he couldn't explain how he knew, but the ripple of leaves shaking in a slow breeze seemed to spell his name. He watched the way it danced, the underside of the maples flickering almost silver in the moonlight before settling back to the blatant false navy of green in the dark. The backs of Roy's hands looked mottled, the splay of ruddy freckles bunching as he curled his hands into loose fists and then tucked them away. 

“What is it about the gates of hell that compels people to walk into them?” Dick asked, face inscrutable behind the domino mask, lenses up and reflecting the dark gaping maw of Grant Park.

Roy smacked a wry grin on his face under the icy nerves that spread over his skin. He didn’t look at the shadow where Bruce was standing. He didn’t look at Dick, just kept his eyes on the swollen dark. Gotham felt like a bruise and Roy had always been pale.

“Just lonely, I guess.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I cut bits of comments off to root like stolen succulents to pot around my kitchen. They make me so happy. One more section to go I think.


End file.
